Case Presentation: IsoPlexis

Drug developers need tools that better identify at early development stages whether their drugs will interact well with the immune system. Clinicians need better tools to show the progression of cancer and inflammatory diseases, both of which may depend on this immune and inflammatory response characterization. IsoPlexis offers the first technology that can specifically isolate single immune cells within a population, then, for each single cell, analyze specific secreted proteins (i.e. cytokines, chemokines, growth factors) over time. Being able to characterize both the individual cells and the various proteins (termed "mutliplexing" in the field) simultaneously is necessary for clarifying the complexity of immune activation and response.

Presenting at The Venture Forum will be IsoPlexis CEO Sean Mackay. Sean has spent more than six years working across healthcare specialties. While at Lazard Freres & Co, he started and led an investment banking advisory team for biotechnology, medical device, and other healthcare firms. Prior to his work at IsoPlexis, Sean also led business development for LifeSquare, a Kleiner Perkins-incubated Health IT firm. A Yale MBA, Sean partnered with pioneering Professor Rong Fan and co-founder Kara Brower to launch IsoPlexis in 2012 through the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute, an affiliate of Yale’s Office of Cooperative Research.

Kara has seven years of research laboratory experience in mathematical modeling, single particle microscopy, and CMOS nanowire biosensors (bioFETs) with specialties in single cell analysis, highly-sensitive detection, and microfluidic interfaces. She has published and patented in the field of sensor optimization and packaging. In 2011, she was awarded the Best-in-Category award for genetic engineering of bacterial cells at the World iGEM competition, as well as the Best American Plasmid Submission. Her work was featured as 3rd in the CIMIT Primary Care Competition (2011) and as the team winner of the COMSOL Design-the-Future competition (2011).

Rong Fan PhD, chief technology advisor and recognized pioneer in single-cell research and Packard fellow, developed the IsoPlexis product. Dr. Fan’s research is focused on exploiting systems biology principles to develop nanobiotechnologies that can be used in clinic for differential diagnosis and personalized treatment of complex human diseases.